Missouri's Mount Pleasant Winery Featured in November Issue of Wine Enthusiast Magazine

Mount Pleasant Winery(5634 High Street, Augusta, Missouri; 800-467-9463) based in Augusta, Missouri, recently received some national praise. Wine Enthusiast, the de facto national magazine for wine lovers, has rated ten selections from the winery, which is located less than 50 miles outside St. Louis. The results went live on the Wine Enthusiast website today, and appear in the magazine's November issue.

Gut Check caught up with Mount Pleasant president Chuck Dressel to discuss what the ratings mean for Missouri wines -- and to learn which wines earned the highest marks.

Gut Check: Congratulations on being featured in Wine Enthusiast. What was the reaction at the winery?

Chuck Dressel: "I think that the great thing for us is that Wine Enthusiast is a nationally recognized magazine, and not only it's great for us but great for Missouri to be able to have wines that are published in a national magazine. Standing behind it and saying, 'These are pretty good wines.' We're really excited. We don't want to rest on our laurels, we want to make sure every harvest is better than the previous one."

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Mount Pleasant Winery president Chuck Dressel.

GC: Which Mount Pleasant wines are your favorites?

CD: As a business owner, I like all the [wines] that our customers would buy. As a wine person who loves to drink wine, the thing that I really enjoy the most is our vignoles. It's a really neat wine that's made from the grape that we grow here in the southern part of the Midwest. It just makes a great wine. The other wine I really really like, I've always liked for years, is our port. Those wines to me are the really special ones that I enjoy the most. They're not the most expensive ones on our menu, but those are the ones I personally enjoy.

GC: You mentioned how this feature is good for Missouri and the wine community in Missouri as a whole. Are you seeing more recognition for Missouri wines on a national scale?

CD: I think it definitely doesn't hurt. The thing I try to encourage in all of the wineries in Missouri is to submit wines to these magazines. If we can start to consistently have seven or eight vineyards throughout the state making very consistent wines, we can see the same effect that happened in Oregon years ago, happen in Missouri. We're seeing a little bit of it happening now in New York state and I think that in Missouri, for whatever reason, it's time to start being recognized as making good wines. I think the consumers of Missouri are demanding that we make great wines. It's time for everyone to step up to the plate and go out and see what kind of ratings we can get.